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Best Buy Customer Gets Box Full of Bathroom Tiles Instead of Hard Drive
The Consumerist is reporting that a Best Buy customer recently purchased a hard drive only to discover that the box contained six ceramic bathroom tiles instead of the Western Digital drive he had expected. The rub of it is Best Buy is refusing to grant a refund or exchange for the non-existent drive. "The employee and assistant manager were more than willing to help, saying that it happens. So they set up the return and I repurchased the drive and while I was checking the contents to ensure it was a hard drive this time, the store manager came up, took the box from me and said to take it up with the manufacturer. Now to my surprise, I argued with the guy saying that they have already accepted the return and I have now purchased the new one. He said I was shit out of luck. I followed up with the manufacturer today and they said they would get the complaint to the Best Buy Purchasing department. Best Buy corporate said that they stand by their manager's decision."
This reminds me so much of the story of someone I know who back in the mid-90s had a shrink wrapping machine. He bought a CD-ROM drive from some department store, took it home, took the CD-ROM drive out. Then he took a brick and placed it back in the CD-ROM box, srinkwrapped the box and then returned it to the store like it was unopened.
Now can you imagine what the next person who bought that had to go through?
So thisb fhf could just be a case of someone trying to trick Best Buy and trying to use a grass roots campaign scam Best Buy.
This is absurd. From reading TFA it sounds like the best buy manager took his new hard drive away from him. This is absolutely criminal. I hope best buy learns from this after they get posted all over the internet. Oh wait, they just did! If you don't want to give your customers service then you really shouldn't be accepting customers. Also, shouldn't this be "Your rights Offline?"
-- David
Sounds like Best Buy. With all the great press they get on/., why do people still go there?
Keep the tiles; they're more reliable.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
If you purchased with a credit card, can't you issue a chargeback?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargeback
Granted it is only wikipedia, but it does list 'failure to issue a refund' as a reason for a chargeback.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
that didn't get checked upon return? If not, then I'd have to be as doubtful about that return as the manager was.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
Getting bathroom tiles in the box rather than a hard drive "happens?" I'll stick to what I can get from Newegg and Wal-mart from now on, thanks.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
...they'll somehow find child pornography on the tiles.
Oh arse
I guess the one positive thing we could say is that at least the Best Buy employees don't drool on themselves within customer eyesight like RadioShack ones. :P
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Why do companies do shit like this?
Any possible praise (ha ha) a manager would get from corporate higher-ups for following this policy is going to be more then offset by all the bad press and lost sales because of any customers who are turned away by hearing of this story. It takes a lot of effort to get new loyal customers, much less effort to retain loyal customers, but it's exceptionally easy to piss them off to the point where they won't come back.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
In this situation, just take it up with your credit card company if you bought using your credit card. Otherwise, you're in trouble, no?
Incidentally, that's why I buy everything I can (except for low-cost stuff) with my credit card. If I'm unhappy, I can complain. More importantly, I can threaten to void purchases. The threat of voiding purchases via your credit card, in my experience, is more useful than actually voiding purchases. The only time I've actually had to follow through on the threat was when hotels.com charged my card but didn't reserve a room for me. Hotels.com refused to cancel the payment because I hadn't given them enough warning. (Ha!) I couldn't get the CSR droid to give up, so I just reserved a new room at the same hotel (for a lower price) and then voided the hotels.com purchase.
Most of the time, though, your credit card company will be on your side, especially if you are a high-value account that buys lots of stuff and have a high credit limit.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
But seriously, how does one prove that BEST BUY was the one at fault? Goodwill towards customers only extends so far when battling fraud.
There Can Be Only One...
If I buy something and it doesn't work, I take it back to the store and they replace it or repair it. They can then take it up with the manufacturer, or not: I don't care. Repair is a high-stakes game, because if trading standards believe that they're doing it to delay, or that the failure was unreasonable, they vendor has a problem. SoGA protection is a movable feast, but applies for at least a year.
People still shop at this crappy place? You can get better buy at your local white box store or new egg.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Receiving those tiles must have driven him up the wall.
This story has been published in the Consumerist and now on Slashdot without either publication checking facts and looking for at least talking points from Best Buy itself. As far as I'm concerned, this story may yet be true, but all I can safely assume is that someone took some pictures of bathroom tiles wrapped in newspaper next to his HDD box in the hopes of scamming Best Buy out of a second drive for free or perhaps just defaming them as revenge for something unrelated. I agree with the columnist in the Consumerist that if this fellow does want to take the issue seriously he should file a complaint for theft and/or a consumer complaint with the Attorney General's office. Up to now, all we're doing by disseminating this story is continuing to feed the anonymous-libel monster.
Think of this from the store's point of view for a moment. Should they just go on good faith? What's to stop tens of thousands of people from buying anything they want and coming back with am empty box demanding their money back? Once word of Best Buy's honor system policy gets out they would be bankrupted by scams.
This isn't any different than the iPod boxes full of gravel that Target just recently got to play with. Assuming the box was brand new and not previously owned and repacked, there is probably a warehouse worker some place with a nice shiny hdd
I was a customer service manager for a Best Buy in Houston, TX for a little over a year. Best Buy Store #291 - "The PowerHouse" Galleria. This store did incredible revenue. My specialty was dealing with overtly horrible Best Buy politics on a daily basis. I sat in on numerous Geek Squad and Home Installation meetings where Management would tell the service sales people to increase their service revenue "by any means necessary." I kid you not, I saw employees express concern about the prices and methods of invoking cash from vulnerable customers, and the management would repeat itself by saying, "by any means necessary." I saw an employee charge a customer $59 to "diagnose" her computer when a CD was stuck in her CD-rom drive, when all he did was pop it out with a paper clip. I saw more horrible Best Buy policies than you could imagine, and I made a good living for a year of my life, trying to negotiate comprimises between customers who had been ripped off bluntly, and Best Buy's corporate ladder, to try and salvage any sliver of dignity that company could possibly salvage, and this speciality of mine only lasted until I'd expressed my concern to the corporate level enough that they realized it would be easier to push me out of their store than it would be to address the concerns that I brought to their attention with regard to their return, exchange, and serviec policies. Being on the inside of that place blew my mind. As for their "service plans," they use the rock-bottom dollar lowest-bidder service centers that broke as many things as they repaired, if not more. Seeing this bit on /. reminded me of the days I spent with customers who were literally crying infront of me because of how this company had wronged them. I'm not saying don't shop there - frankly I could care less and I still buy the occasional item from Best Buy out of sheer convenience, but stories like this one never surprise me, in the sense that Best Buy's business model is to make money by any means necessary.
Dammit, our stupid President has forever ruined that fine saying.
Sounds like the small number of bricks and crap is growing. We should all start video taping opening stuff to use in small claims court as evidence that we aren't trying to screw the store.
Well, maybe at first, however, in TFA, I got the idea, that BB had already accepted the return, and the customer had bought and paid for a NEW harddrive and had that in hand.
The manager then took the drive from his hand, etc. Now, if the customer had a drive and receipt...I would think what the BB manager did to him was plain and simple theft. I'd contact the Atty General about that.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is why I use Amex exclusively and do not shop at stores that do not accept Amex. I have, unfortunately, had to use the Amex privilege several times to get merchants to cooperate. Amex has always been grand -- on one horrible purchase that a merchant refused to refund, Amex credited the charge but didn't void the transaction, so the merchant got paid. The merchant subseuquently refunded my purchase, and even after I alerted Amex that they had given me a few hundred bucks for free, the service rep told me it was all taken care of and it was my lucky day. That's pretty damn sweet considering most credit card companies are the root of all evil.
My mom made the mistake of buying a service plan for her Toshiba Satellite.
She asked me to pick it up for her at the Carbondale, IL store (dead HD, laptop still under warranty) and after they'd left me to cool my heels for 20 minutes, had me sign paperwork, etc. they handed me the, paperwork, old HD (in case she chose to send it to Toshiba for data recovery) and then stated that they "weren't sure" if the OS installation fee was covered by the service plan and wouldn't let me leave with the computer unless I paid $130(!) for OS installation (Toshiba recovery CD) and that if (IF!) they found that it was covered, I would be refunded.
I called her (I had places to be right then) and she called the store manager, corporate, etc. and after 1.5 hours decided they could waive the fee if I was willing to wait for them to REPLACE THE DRIVE, a wait of 1-2 HOURS. Well, no, I wasn't willing to wait, so I left. Shortly afterward she received a call that the recently installed drive was WIPED and the computer was ready to be picked up.
I'm going today to pick up the computer. My bet is that either 1.) they'll conveniently "forget" that they were waiving the fee, or that 2.) they've lost either the old HD or the entire computer. Bets, anyone?
No frickin' way would I buy a computer from Best Buy. DVDs and CDs, sure, and maybe hardware with decent factory warranties, but not computers, and if I were dumb enough to, I certainly wouldn't take it to the store for warranty work! I've heard too many horror stories from other people who've ended up spending the same amount of money they'd spent on their hardware, only to have to wait for half a month for a computer just as bricked as it was when it went in.
Best Buy and Geek Squad is about as crooked as the crookedest used-car dealership.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I purchased a sound card a few years ago, got it home, opened it up and there was an old Jazz drive and 3.5-to-5.25 bracket inside. Lucky for me, I had some leverage when returning it and did get my exchange. When the CS rep started giving me trouble about it I threatened to return the $3,000 in merchandise I had purchased in the prior 30 days.
When I got the new box, I noticed the shrink wrap was different. I always check the shrink now and often will open it after I purchase it while still at the register. I also NEVER buy the first item on the shelf, but go to one farther back.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
First of all, how do you prove that you didn't just stuff the box full of crap and try to exchange it so you could wind up with two drives for the price of one? It may be legitimate and the blame may be at some point in the supply chain at or before Best Buy, but how does one prove it? And how do you - as a retailer - not end up with a bunch of morons returning boxes that they've stuffed crap into, as well?
It would seem the only reasonable thing to do from this point on is to open a box and make sure your item is in there before leaving the store. That's what I intend to do after hearing enough of these stories. If you haven't left the store, then they can't put the blame on you and you can return it right there.
I bought a wireless mouse/keyboard combo (LogiTech brand) that was a returned product (i didn't even notice it was a returned product until customer service was inspecting it). I opened it up and it had the wrong brand keyboard/mouse in there. some third party i had never heard of. at first they were refusing to replace it. they kept saying they can't accept the return because its the incorrect product inside. i said, thats all well and good, but i'm not leaving til i either get the same product or a refund. they were unwilling to help and i kept complaining saying i'm not going to lose approx. $50 because one of their employees was too lazy to check their returns. the customer should never pay for an employee's mistake. this is one of those cases where people forget that the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. why are they always right? because a majority of the time, they are. You *always* give the customer benefit of the doubt. If you don't, most of the time you're turning away honest customers who will no longer shop with you and you therefore lose a lot more money as opposed to the cost of that one product. sometimes you'll scammers, but the only reason they thrive is due to lazy employees who don't check to ensure the contents are correct. it shouldn't matter if it looks unopened or not. they should always check (unless its blister packaging... thats *much* more difficult to fake). eventually they gave me a replacement product because it was way too complex of a scenario to just get a keyboard and mouse. plus there were a bunch of people on the customer service line and it was completely obvious that everyone can hear me complain that they were essentially charging me $50 because they hire lazy employees.
Best Buy has no way of knowing whether the guy is telling the truth. But it doesn't matter.
Unless they want to have their sales slowed down by every customer insisting that a salesperson open the box before the customer leaves the store... and plugging in it... and testing it... and initialling the sales receipt... which would add about half an hour to an hour's work time to every sale... they've got to believe the customer.
At least the first time.
If they've got records that show that this customer has been repeatedly returning items, each time claiming that the factory-sealed box had worthless contents, that's another matter... but one that should be handled by legal process.
There is no set of circumstances under which what Best Buy allegedly did was appropriate.
P. S.
When she was in college, my daughter once bought an item from L. L. Bean. UPS delivered it, not to my daughter, but to the front desk of the dormitory, and got an signature that wasn't my daughter's signature and that couldn't be identified. My daughter called UPS. UPS insisted there was nothing they could/would do, they'd delivered the package and got a signature. She called L. L. Bean. They said, "Oh, that's too bad, we're sorry, we'll send another one out right away." L. L. Bean made several customers for life that day.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The bad publicity will cost them hundredfold of what they gained from not giving the customer what he should have gotten
And if word gets around that they'll trade boxes of tiles for hard drives, how much will it cost them? I feel for the guy but if I were running a store I'd have to be skeptical and not unquestioningly and immediately accept returns like this.
It won't cost them a single dime in bad PR. Why? Best Buy sucks. Always has. Most big box stores are equally sucky. Everybody knows this. The people who still shop at those places are looking for what every other red-blooded American wants: CHEAP! Those people don't care about service, quality, reputation, where their money is going, etc. If they can get it cheap, they're going to continue to buy as cheap as they can, damn the consequences.
I don't respond to AC's.
I had a similar experience last spring. I purchased a sack of manure from the gardening wholesaler and when I got home and opened the bag it was full of F# documentation.
brandelf: invalid ELF type 'KEEBLER'
My mom bought a refrigerator and purchased the extended warranty. It doesn't work well - it won't balance the freezer and the fridge. So either you have liquid ice cream OR your all the stuff in your fridge is frozen solid.
They literally refused to honor their warranty. The company sent a repair person who said it was on spec. Actually, what he basically said is this was a poor design that doesn't work well. And this is not uncommon for this model. So since it's not uncommon for this model they wouldn't fix it.
Go figure...that's like saying since it's not uncommon for the breaks to fail on this model car. So we're not going to fix it under warranty because this is pretty much a standard occurrence with this car.
***
All of this being BS as my mother's upstairs tenants have the same fridge and it doesn't have any problems.
My experience with this process with the credit card companies is that it's far from an automatic "consumer wins" by a long stretch.
I've done this 3 times (visa and/or mc - no amex). One time I won by default (the vendor never replied apparently), the second time I lost (vendor disagreed) but I got my money back anyway as a courtesy from the credit card company (it was a small transaction, less than $50 I think), and the third time I lost and did not get my money back (vendor disagreed, case closed). Each time I had to document my claim to the best of ability, it took months to come to a conclusion. From what I can tell the vendor has the upper hand in those investigations, NOT the consumer.
The credit card companies say that claim resolution is handled by Visa and/or Mastercard so they don't control the outcome (but they are profusely sorry) so threatening to cancel your account has no effect either.
Bottom line, it's not a very good situation to be in.
I think that you overestimate the influence of /.ers.
We're not even 1% of the population, and while we might make 10x as many purchases as the rest of the population, we're still a small portion of BB and such's customer base; We're too likely to buy our stuff online from places like Newegg and tigerdirect.
I don't read AC A human right
Friends don't let Friends Buy @ Best Buy...;-)
Sig?! Sig?! We don't need no stinking sig!!
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Is it that much more expensive to do some sort of clear packaging? Ugly from a recycling standpoint, perhaps, but if the package had a clear window to the objects inside, it would be a lot harder to disguise crap as quality.
And perhaps vendors should also weigh the returns. Shrink-wrapped items should all weigh within about 1% of the standard, other items within a few percent.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I have to agree. We don't know the whole story here, so I'm going to just take TFA at face value for the purposes of this argument and assume that's exactly what happened. Years ago, back around '92, I used to work at Meijer. I'll save my rants about how horrible of a place that is to work for another time, suffice to say it sucked. But anyway, that's offtopic. I worked night shift in the toy dept, which also carried all of the videogame consoles. I still remember what happened...it was Saturday, Dec 26, 1992. They called my department up to the service desk to get our returns. The store opened at 6am, and I worked 11-7:30 at that time. So this was maybe 6:30 or so, half hour after the store opened. Of course, as you imagine on the day after xmas, there were a LOT of returns. They were calling us up there every 15 minutes or so to get them. I was done with my nightly stocking, the morning shift people had just come in, so I said I'd go up and get the returns. When I got up there, there were 2 carts of returns waiting for me (we often got stuff in returns that we didn't even sell, but that's another matter entirely...this place was a lot more generous on returns than Best Buy)...but there was also an irate-sounding customer, the customer service desk manager, the night store manager, and the store manager. This guy had a SNES box and a receipt dated 3 months earlier. He was swearing up and down that he bought it as a gift, and it was never opened until the day before. (I stood up there behind the counter "sorting" my returns so I could observe.) As the story goes, the kids unwrapped it, opened the box, and discovered that the system was missing. The controllers, instructions, power supply, etc were all there, but no console. He was obviously just trying to "return" it for an exchange that had the console. People kept saying no until it got up to the store manager, who also said no. He said "I can understand how you must feel sir, but try to look at this from our point of view. How do we know you didn't just take the system out and then bring the empty box back? Don't you think someone would notice that the box is a lot lighter than it should be?" Now at that time, we sold a lot of those systems. Is it possible that he got one with the system missing? It's vaguely possible, but not very likely...they were kept in a locked case with the overstock on top of the shelf (16 feet up). A lot of things were stolen from that place, but in the entire time I worked there I never found out about any game consoles missing. Sure they were overly generous with their returns, but they did (at least the entire time I was there) check to make sure that returned items actually had the product inside. The boxes for SNES's weren't shrinkwrapped either, so it would've been very easy to check it (in fact they did check it). Is it possible that an employee or someone in receiving stole the system out of the box? I guess it's possible, but not very likely. I can't really say I would've done any different in the store manager's situation. However, the Best Buy story has one detail that makes it different...the people who had the authority to accept returns already said they would do it, and then the manager has to walk up in a Bill Lumburgh way and then grab the new hard drive out of the guy's hand that he had already bought? The transaction was complete at that point...if the manager grabbed the new one from him after he paid for it, that's theft, pure and simple. If everyone had said no to the return and it got up to the manager and he said no too, well that's a bit different from the way it appears to have been handled according to TFA. So at least from what I'm getting from TFA, Best Buy is definitely in the wrong, and the guy should file a complaint with the state attorney general, at the very least. If the manager touched the guy in any way when he grabbed the drive, the guy might be able to get the manager up on charges for aggravated robbery.
Most likey the purchaser of the box full of tiles is a legitimate customer, who is suffering from the actions of a previous scam artist. After working in retail security for several years I have seen DVD burners returned with wooden logs inside, and iPod boxes returned with bars of soap in them. The scammer will purchase an item, remove it, place anything inside to match the weight, and seal it up as cleanly as possible. The scammer returns the box, gets their money back, and the product goes right back onto the salesfloor (without being opened and checked). It sits on the salesfloor until some unfortunate HONEST customer purchases it, and watches as their 12 year old daughter unwraps her brand new Apple iPod which turns out to be a bar of Dial soap. This honest customer then gets to deal with the headache of returning it and trying to explain what happened. In my experience, the store was always obligated to refund these mystery boxes when they get brought back because the store has zero proof of who initially swapped the merchandise out in the first place. Rather then hassle this customer (assuming he doesn't have a long suspicious history of returns like this), Best Buy should be telling their return department to be more diligent about checking items that are returned "as new". This type of scamming activity is leading many retail stores to begin requiring photo ID when returning items, and limiting how many returns can be processed per ID per year.
It is theft and scam. I hope Best Buy tracks down the assholes that are doing this and pass the "costs" down on them + a nice visit to police station in cuffs + nice fine and restitution.
This is actually a case *for* unique ids like RFID to be implemented everywhere. At least that way you would be able to track down the asshole that stole from Best Buy and the guy in question. Now it is still possible, but will take time. I'm sick and tired that Best Buy should "eat it". The thief should be the one that eats the damn tiles.
As for the guy that ended up with garbage (if BestBuy didn't do the right thing, as they didn't seem to),
1. file a police report
2. chargeback credit card
3. contact drive manufacturer and report that the drive in question was stolen -- this at least voids warranty on the drive
4. if new drive is not handed over by Best Buy (show them police report), add to the police report that they stole your new drive
5. if Best Buy continue to not hand over the drive, sue them for selling you a brick (small claims) + taking money for it + ALL your time you lost + court filing fees. Just do not exaggerate your time - judges don't like that.
Unfortunately, theft like this hits us all in the pocketbooks all the way from customers up to Best Buy shareholders.
As to parent, I don't know what "people" you hang around with that "do this all the time". Sounds like a bunch of assholes to me.
Bought a shrinkwrapped All-In-Wonder video card at one of those big-box stores, opened it up, and found an ancient ATI card from years ago inside. Either they re-wrapped a returned card and sold it as new (not legal), or there was an inside job by an employee.
Fortunately for me, the manager let me return it (I had never returned anything I bought from them before, so maybe that helped). Nowadays, whenever I go shopping for computer parts (or small-and-pricey things in general), if the box doesn't have a transparent window or some sort of manufacturer's seal (beyond shrinkwrap, which is too easy to re-do), then as soon as I pass the checkout counter, I tell the cashier that I'm going to take a peek inside. I step back a little so I don't block the next customer, and I open the box right there before exiting the store.
I don't see why you'd need RFIDs to track down the person returning rubbish. Most stores I've been to take your address when you return something, so if someone is scamming, it should be easy for the store to track down the person by looking up the serial number on the box.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
First, the scam works the other way. You buy in cash and then do a return/exchange later (after which, you have two or more products). If you end up making a fuss in the store (as happened here), you'd end up like this, or at worst, arrested.
Anyhow, my guess would actually be a store employee having done this, especially if the dates on the drive are true. After all, they should have a shrink wrap machine, there'd be no return at all to trace back to them, and you leave some other customer hosed. The only good thing is that being too greedy (and petty crooks like this are ALWAYS too greedy...) should get him or her caught by the store and quietly prosecuted. The victims won't likely get much help, though. They're SOL except that they can issue chargebacks.
That said, if there was a return, it'd have been the guy before this. It's just the way the scam works. You don't make a fuss like this unless you're innocent, because drawing attention to yourself is exactly the sort of thing that'd get you caught. Yes, crooks are that dumb, but they're dumb in different ways. They'll avoid attention but get too greedy in pulling the scam too many times. Smart stores will start checking returns a lot better. And life will go on.
A while back, Small Dog Electronics shipped one of their customers an iPod box with only a bar of Irish Spring soap inside. Here's how their Customer Service department handled it:
http://consumerist.com/consumer/customer-service/no-ipod-soap-210348.php
That is similar to what my father does: he has them open the package if it's one of those that requires a utility knife and some heavy cutting. He also leaves the packaging at the store, so they can deal with it. It sends the message: less packaging, easier to open. It'd also guard against this problem.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
My story is indirectly relevant. Back in undergrad, I was writing a research paper and had checked out a stack of books from the main library - probably about half a dozen. When I was done with them, I returned them. A few weeks later, I got a letter stating that I had never returned one of them, and that they were going to charge me a standard fee of $205. Now I knew that I had returned this book; I distinctly remembered doing it, and all the other ones had been returned, but since I had just dropped them all in the return bin and didn't have a receipt, I had no way to prove anything. I talked to a circulation person, and they conducted a "search," which took a few more weeks; eventually they told me they were going to not charge me the fee as a one-time act of mercy, even though they hadn't found the book. (Incidentally, I later found the book on the shelf where I had checked it out. I guess someone just didn't properly check it in).
Ever since that time, I always got return receipts for books - except once. It was a Sunday, and I was leaving town and had to turn in a book. So, I filmed myself returning the book - clearly caught the book cover, title, author, etc., and myself, and the book going into the return chute. Also had a friend state the date and time, etc. Sure, it might not have held up in a court, but it would've given the circulation people something to think about if they claimed that I hadn't returned it.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Tell the manager: "Fine I will be calling my credit card company and denying authorization for that charge"
It is now the stores problem.
And mastercard can throw its weight around
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Long ago I worked in retail computer sales, and I had someone come in and ask to see a particular piece of software. There was only one copy on the shelf, which they asked me to open and show them, so I opened it for them, installed the software, and spent a half hour or so showing them around the software. This was back in the day when most customers didn't know anything about computers, so I ended up teaching people fairly often, so I didn't mind that part. Then, when I asked whether they wanted it, they said that they didn't want the copy that I'd opened for them, because it was a present for someone. When I pointed out that they'd asked me to open the box for them, they stuck to their guns and refused to buy the copy that they'd asked me to open, because it was open.
Yes, I'm not proud to admit it, but in the face of that "Catch 22" I told them that I'd check the inventory in the back, carried the box out to the shrink wrapping machine, re-wrapped it, came back and sold it to them. Luckily they didn't ask where the other box was.
On that front, I had many customers come in, get my recommendations for software, have me give demo's, even have me train them on the basics of the software, then not buy. That's all fine. But then they would come back in, clearly having bought the software mail order, and have the nerve to ask me more questions. I like helping people, but that's just insulting!
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
We don't have enough information to determine who put the tiles in the box, and the customer might have done it himself. Okay, sure. But look at the actual words in the article concerning the replacement:If a person returns an item and the store takes that physical item away from them and replaces it with another physical item in return, the second that the transaction is complete, the customer OWNS the replacement item and any person -- store employee or not -- who tries to take it from them is STEALING.
If an employee believes that the customer tampered with the first item, then they should call the police and report the customer for fraud or for falsifying returns, or (so simple it's mindboggling) refuse to accept the return! However, once an employee accepts the return and gets to the point of putting the physical replacement in the customer's hands, I feel as though a judge is going to be sympathetic to the customer and say that he has a right to retain that physical item.
Not even did the manager take back the hardware, the manager physically removed the box from the customer's hands... a good lawyer might even be able to bring the manger up on assault charges.
coding is life
Are you stupid? Do you look through everything you buy to make sure it's exactly what it's labeled as? I sure as hell don't open my cereal boxes in the store just make sure I'm really getting cereal.
I worked in retail for a number of years (no longer thank God/Allah/Yaweh/etc) and saw this type of thing happen a lot.
While Sega was selling the Genesis, guys would buy a complete system, take it home, remove the motherboard from the machine, reassemble it, and return it for a full refund. I would imagine that having to buy a pair of cheapo controllers, power supply, and a used copy of Sonic all for $30 beats buying the whole system for $119+ tax.
Sega, SNES, and Gameboy game carts were easily opened with tools you could buy from Parts Express. I worked at a second hand game store and we found a number of carts that had been returned had their innards pulled and replaced with "undesirable" roms like various Barbie and Jesus games.
While working at a Best Buy, we were finding that a series of open box hard drives were being returned because the capacity didn't match what was bought. 4.3GB hard drives were reporting 850MB or less, though their labels said otherwise.
72 pin and SDRAM were also being hijacked in a similar fashion. People were returning RAM saying that they had bought a 32MB stick but it was reporting only 4 or 8MB.
Then there was stuff like the aforementioned scam. We got all kinds of returns only to find bricks, tiles, rocks, and anything else you can imagine in place of radios, VCR's, speakers, etc (one CSR got stung by a guy who returned a set of "White Van" speakers in place of the Infinity's he bought). Most of my stores instituted a policy where items had to be inspected before they were accepted for returned, but they were really slow to do so with PC parts.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
Aside from a contract (I pay $X to WorstBuy, WorsBuy gives me Y widget), there is also an implied warranty of merchantability, e.g., if you buy a hard drive, it should function as a HD; if you buy a hammer, it will work as a hammer.
The problem here is that the HD is probably worth $40-$120 -- the cost of a suit is much higher so WorstBuy basically knows they can do whatever they want.
I've proudly avoided WorstBuy for the last four or more years. I suspect this guy is going to join the rest of us who won't set foot in that bastion of evil.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Agreed. But if Best Buy is accepting returns without looking inside the box to verify that there is a real product inside it, it becomes Best Buy's responsibility. If I buy something from Best Buy and I get home and the box contains something else, I absolutely positively expect Best Buy to "eat it." It's their fault. They should have inspected the contents of the box before accepting the return, and definitely before putting it back on the shelf for another victim to purchase.
This is actually a case *for* unique ids like RFID to be implemented everywhere. At least that way you would be able to track down the asshole that stole from Best Buy and the guy in question. Now it is still possible, but will take time. I'm sick and tired that Best Buy should "eat it". The thief should be the one that eats the damn tiles.
As for the guy that ended up with garbage (if BestBuy didn't do the right thing, as they didn't seem to),
1. file a police report
2. chargeback credit card
3. contact drive manufacturer and report that the drive in question was stolen -- this at least voids warranty on the drive
4. if new drive is not handed over by Best Buy (show them police report), add to the police report that they stole your new drive
5. if Best Buy continue to not hand over the drive, sue them for selling you a brick (small claims) + taking money for it + ALL your time you lost + court filing fees. Just do not exaggerate your time - judges don't like that.
Unfortunately, theft like this hits us all in the pocketbooks all the way from customers up to Best Buy shareholders.
As to parent, I don't know what "people" you hang around with that "do this all the time". Sounds like a bunch of assholes to me. This would require effort on behalf of Best Buy.
The liability rests with the retailer for ensuring that what they sell you is what is advertised. If I were to tell you that I had a bridge for sale and told you the name of it was "London Bridge" and you got a crappy little bridge made from a few pieces of stone, I would be telling the truth, but if I showed you a picture of Tower Bridge in London and called it "London Bridge" you could sue me to high heaven for misrepresenting what I ended up buying.
The box shows a hard drive, the paperwork (receipt) shows a hard drive, by extension you expect to be able to store more than the 10 commandments on it and they sold it as fit for a certain purpose.
A box of tiles does not match what was handed over in the transaction and therefore the onus is on the store to take back the goods and (under UK law: give full money back) or at the least (I believe in the States) give a store credit to the value of the monies paid.
The store can then begin the process of chasing up the person that defrauded them out of a perfectly working hard drive and replaced it with a few lousy tiles. Not that they will have much luck, plausible deniability as has been stated in other posts goes a long way to establishing innocence.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Agreed, and I've never given them my real info. *I* know I'm not ripping 'em off, and so feel no reason to jump through hoops clueless suits create.
Somewhere, in a marketing database somewhere, sits:
Elmer Fudd
22 Acacia Avenue
San Antonio, RI, 90210
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
What you are missing is that the store did in fact refund the persons money. The person then purchased a new hard drive. The store manager proceeded to commit a robbery by seizing the persons property without their permission. The property that was siezed was a hard drive. The transaction concerning the tiles was over and done with in a legal fashion.
;) ) and when I called you on it, you told me that sometimes this mistake happens, and delivered the Tower Bridge, there would be no breach of contract. Of course, if after the transaction is over, and the correct bridge has been delivered, you turned around and seize the Tower bridge from me, and told me to take it up with your corporate headquarters, you would not be in breach of contract. It would be a simple robbery. OK, not simple. It is a bridge after all, but it would still be robbery.
To use your analogy, if you showed me a picture of Tower Bridge, and delivered the London Bridge, (Yes, even though I am an America, I do understand the difference.
The issue here isn't that the store refused the return. The took the return. The real issue is that after the guy bought a real (presumably) function hard drive, the manager of the store approached the customer, and seized his property. That is robbery.
5. if Best Buy continue to not hand over the drive, sue them for selling you a brick (small claims) + taking money for it + ALL your time you lost + court filing fees. Just do not exaggerate your time - judges don't like that.
Unfortunately, one can't sue for time in small claims in the US. A small claims action is designed to replace property value. A plaintiff will never be made whole in small claims court.
IANAL but have been a plaintiff.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
I have to stop reading any further. No need. Any thign Ibuy in the past few years needs a knife, a pair scissors and or pilers to open. And has lots of tamper proof seals to show clear unwrapping / opening. I bought a nose-hair trimmer: seal in clear plastic > hard plastic > crimped unpriable around all freaking edges. A frigging $10 buy. Opened my new cell phone: wrapped in plastic > seals everywhere a joint / meeting occurs. Try flim flaming that. Bought a 4-pack of stylus (stilii? :-) Small & narrow flat package > clear hard plastic > crimped all around. Awkward pakaging for a human to open. No way to open that without a pen knife, a pair scisssors and 3 hands. No kidding. If a $4 pakage (and cheaper items similarly) can readily evince handling wtf not a piece of electronics.
In a pile of scattered text, puns are sometimes our only outlet. Would you prefer that the store be referred to as "That fucking retarded crook-harboring scamshop Best Buy" ?
WorstBuy it is.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Sad thing is, that doesn't even scratch the surface of how bad Worst Buy really is.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
after formatting you can only use 5 of the tiles.
I recently bought a SATA hard drive from Best Buy. It was shrink-wrapped and everything, but I got home and inside was a nice old, used, IDE drive. I took it back and they let me exchange it, fortunately. They really need to do better about checking their returns... I'd go somewhere else, but the town where I live doesn't have a lot of alternatives.
/. today. I have purchased a metric crapload of computer parts (cases, motherboards, memory, video cards, monitors, etc.) as well as few digital cameras from newegg. I have never had a problem with the stuff that shipped from newegg's warehouses.
NEWegg.com
newEGG.com
newegg.COM
If UPS or Fedex deliver to your town, you can shop newegg. I don't understand all of the "I got ripped-off at Best Buy when I bought a SATA drive but it turned out to be IDE" stories on
http://www.newegg.com/
Sigs: Don't turn them off, they're useful sometimes.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
This simply illustrates how the US is way behind in terms of customer service and corporate policies. If management cannot think to implement such a simple policy to protect themselves and the customers they serve, they deserve whatever negative press they get. They will get no sympathy from me for their laziness and ignorance.
Dear Mistuh Togie,
I'm glad I finally twacked you down. I've been getting endless junk mail related to prowducts I've never purchased. I got a restwaining order against that pesky wabbit, but the junk mail still kept coming.
May you wot in hell.
sincerwly,
Elmer J. Fudd
Who's the moron who takes ownership of a hard drive that clinks like a bunch of tiles!? I mean, WTF? You'll initially believe that it's just a hard drive, but when you shift the box and it goes "clink clink", you'll think, "shit, this hard drive is toast" without even opening the box or getting more than 10 steps from the store.
This guy is totally scamming best buy and using us to try and put pressure on best buy and get a second hard drive for free.
What bullshit. The tiles were wrapped in newspaper! Only a complete dumbass wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't a hard drive.
and BTW, I *hate* best buy.... but i hate the type of people who would do this more.
don
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
So you are an identity as well as a hard drive thief! That is my name and address!
Err, wait. You have my apologies. I misread my ID which says Jules Vern.
A good friend of mine bought a Sony Digital Camera back in 2001 or 2002 at Frys. I was there with him when he bought it, when we got home and he unwrapped it, the Camera was missing, only the manuals, packing material and drivers were there. The Camera was missing. We went back to Fry's and tried to explain the camera was missing from the box. The CSR people basically didn't believe us and told us to get lost. My friend ended up writing a letter to the CEO himself. Surprisingly, he got a response (a form letter) that basically said they are sorry, but there is nothing that Fry's can do. I know I've shopped at fry's many times, and Fry's has a reputation of putting returned products back on the shelves. I've heard many stories about how people would buy a GeForce 8500GT video card and after opening the package, would find an older 6500 or something to that effect.
I was shopping in Best Buy one day. I was looking at hard drives. Some other customer was looking at a couple open box video cards. He asks one of the blue shirts if he can open up the video card and check it out. Blue shirt says sure. I look over and the customer pulls a modem out of the video card box. He asks the blue shirt where the monitor plugs in. I interrupt and tell them that's a modem and not a video card. The customer puts the modem back in the box, hands it to the blue shirt and walks away.
Then what does the blue shirt do? He puts the box BACK ON THE SHELF.
I've worked in retail and been a customer. While a majority is a scam, this is not always the case. CDs and DVDs are pretty good with their anti-theft packaging. Hard drives aren't. A lot of them just have plastic wrap and a seal. Our store had plastic and a heat gun to reseal any damaged packaging.
If you've worked in retail, you would know that not all employees care enough or are smart enough to figure out a hard drive was stolen. That doesn't even include the employees that are actively involved in theft themselves, which accounts for about 45% of inventory shrinkage.
If it had been me, I would have felt perfectly within my rights to put said manager on his ass the moment he tried to steal what was, by then, my property, and let the law sort it out if he objected.
The nearest we've got to Best Buy in the UK is PC World / Dixons, and I've had so many bust-ups with managers in those stores over mis-labelling, poorly placed stock, etc. that I now just don't shop there any more, else I would be risking getting done for GBH.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
I worked briefly for Best Buy (though not in their returns department) and also for CompUSA for a bit (I know...pity the fool.)
At CompUSA we never took back *any* returns until we had verified what was in the box. On top of that, we always required a drivers license or valid photo ID. I vaguely recall returning something to Best Buy once and them requiring the same information. If they are not taking that info, they are not doing their jobs correctly.
Which, in the U.S., the way some people behave, is not necessarily surprising.
Do You Experiment?
I work in retail, in fact the customer is frequently wrong as well as loud and stupid.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I stopped at a local computer shop once upon a time to buy a network card. Got carried away, wound up buying a NIC, new video card, and a hard drive. Came to about $350. Paid with my credit card and left.
Few days later I notice a $350 credit on my card. I go back and look at the receipt and realize that the guy processed it as a CREDIT instead of a CHARGE. So I'm gonna do the right thing and tell him about it. Stop in his store a little while later:
Me: Hey, I was in here the other day. I think you messed up the charge for my credit card.
Him: I didn't OVERCHARGE you sir, and I'm getting sick of people nickel and diming me.
Me: Yeah, you didn't overcharge me, I was looking at this receipt and....
Him: Read the sign. NO REFUNDS, NO RETURNS
Me: Your right, what was I thinking?
Went in to do the right thing and got attitude for it. So fuck 'em. They never did catch it. They PAID ME $350 to take their stuff. For some reason they went out of business a few months later..... ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The employees, at least, get paid straight time. No commission, and really no incentives.
I happen to have worked at a Best Buy in the past (briefly, mind you... my manager and I had a disagrement about the best way to serve the customers' needs - I wanted to explain things to them so they could make an informed decision, he wanted them to buy things based on purchase price).
I have no idea what management gets paid, or what their incentive plans might include. I do know that the blue-vested people you see wandering around in the aisles ignoring customers are paid not much more than minimum wage, regardless of the speed at which inventory fails to fly off the shelves.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
I don't know where you live and work, but I used to work for a major HP/Compaq VAR in the NYC area. For a while we had a major problem shipping notebook computers via a certain three-letter shipping outlet. Someone in the shipper's local transfer station was opening the boxes, taking out the laptop and accessories, replacing them with the equivalent weight in bricks, and then sealing them back up as if they were never opened. This happened on both incoming and outgoing shipments.
Commercial shrink-wrap sealers necessary to make a product look like its never been opened are not cheap in comparison to the price of a hard disk. I think it's much more likely that a store employee stole the hard disk and re-wrapped it using the store's own sealer -- which I'm sure every Best Buy has in their warehouse -- rather than the customer. On top of which, retail stores have insurance to cover big losses and figure a certain amount of theft and fraud into the mark-up on sales. Unless they have some reason to suspect this customer is a repeat offender, their treatment was very short-sighted. I doubt that this customer will ever return to Best Buy when its time to buy that $3,000 HDTV (or the $100 HDMI cable, $120 home theater power filter and all the other overpriced crap BB tries to pile on a sale). And, over time, that will cost BB more than the $100 write-off against taxes that they would have encountered.
--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]